OFFICIAL Combat Re-Balance Feedback Thread

[Duke]

Probably needs to be tweaked along with the healing of a mage. Perhaps the next iteration?

Hopefully. But this is the type of thing they want to hear, right?

[FluffNStuff]

Hopefully. But this is the type of thing they want to hear, right?

Definitely. Consider how many devs there are and how many players there are. What they are hoping for here is people point out the things they are seeing (like the health steal issue) so they can focus on these things they may have missed. I can't speak for the Dev's and say that they will change that or anything else posted, but I can say they will at least look into it.

[Steverd]

Since you might be making rapid updates over a period of days, would it not be better to suspend CS? An item might be worth 300k now, 1k tomorrow and 200k next day. Might be a good idea to suspend trading until the items are settled. I personally wont be buying or selling for a bit until things settle with updates.

NO WAY, don't close the CS.
All of my Mage stuff is finally selling!!!

I'm not playing the game right now, until things settle down, BUT I am playing the CS.

Steverd

[Steverd]

Ogediah, if bears were Invincible why do I have 700 deaths since A03 started , and btw bears died just as easy too if we messed up a stun or debuff or didn't pin the boss just right. The game was fine just how it was in my opinion, should have been left alone. As the wise always say, If it's not broken don't fix it.

Yes, this was very true. My level 50 bear dies all of the time in the Victory Lap.

Steve

[CanonicalKoi]

Also I wanted to say That any class that does is not dex is now a problem.

The hit% of str and int builds is very low with the balance.
Also the weapon speed makes us attack less so if we miss it's a lot of damage we loose out of.

Level 50 mage--136% chance to hit prior to change. Current chance to hit is 101%. Since I don't PvP with her, it shouldn't be a problem; I'm still over 100%.
Level 49 pure bird--No clue prior to change. Current chance to hit is 108%. Not a whole lot of difference there considering I've got 255 dex on the bird and 62 dex on the mage. Nothing over 100% is going to do you any good anyway outside of PvP and getting debuffed.

[TwinkTastical]

Ok, so last time you did this... it made class attributes skill based........sooo making the game relient on skills, requires... lots of the class attribute... for example, an intbear has int and dex, so its skills do nothing. Or a pally is str and dex, now is kind of badish, gtg back to skool soooo ill finish dis lataaaaa.

[Rashkar]

i think the whole system needs a revamp.

change damage reduction to % based on armor.

We should have a better skill tree. which gives us a choice to choose talents which give us permanent dodge/more damage/more hp/increased armor/more crit.

and of cos damage skills and buffs.

So a bear who wants to tank. will just choose to lvl talents which boost the attributes they wish to pursue and the skills they wish to use. different specialization.

Attribute points will still give us the relevant stats when we put into either str/dex/int. However they should be subjected to diminishing returns.

example.

at lvl 40. 6 points of dex gives u 1 crit 1 dodge 1 hit rate 2 base damage.
at lvl 50. 8 points of dex gives u 1 crit 1 dodge 1 hit rate 2 base damage.

This will allow for room for STS to add new gear which gives better stats.

THIS is a fantastic idea, this is synonymous to the system that world of warcraft uses

[dirtball]

Did AO3 last night with a good team. A few dropped out and were replaced along way. Mainly me as tank, 2 mages and 2 birds. We did all the way to overlord and killed him. I think keeper was the toughest boss. Tpaxx took about a minute, all karate guys took a minute or two. Overlord took about 10 minutes, I died 3 or 4 times but it was my first time fighting him. Didn't seem that hard, still one shotted most with his nuke but always had at least 1 stay alive.
I soloed AO3 earlier, all but keeper and Mynas. Health is definitely going much faster with bears but it's not a bad thing. They now have to taunt and backon lots more. Running in and chopping everything is sure death. Health pots were being spammed. Think I went through about 150 or so total in AO3 last night. Almost no mana pots needed. Mynas helm of Isis, thoth Djinn spear, mynas mail of Isis, and a Pharoahs shield of bear(it gives better H/S than other pharoah shields).
Sniper took 5 minutes solo, used 20 health pots. Lorekeeper took about 7 minutes. Used 20 -30 health pots. Got purple drop on both of them. Overall I only died once soloing but health got very low at times and had to run from some mobs to stay alive.
Not a bad update, just have to understand that it is no longer a tank run in and never get hurt type of game. Mages much more usefull now that health goes quicker, and with the lower damage weapons their debuffs help alot. I did notice that combos affect mobs much more now. Terror almost destroys them completely.
Not at all upset and thanks to the DEVS for helping to work through this phase.

[Astax]

Tbh they mostly are dealing with kids, maybe the avg player age base is increasing with the droid influx.

This might be true. I'm 29 and I arrived with the droid. But I love autoattacking, and using a skill here and there. Just mashing a touchscreen does not feel right to me

[Warchanter]

Why would u change a well oiled machine ? Why ? U had that many complaints that u decided to change the entire game ? Honestly as a consumer I hate it. It's slow and tedious 2.5 really on a sword or a bow really ? I think this change was made for future campaigns that offer weapons that have higher dps. Unreal. Unreal change it back.

[Rusalio]

I am rolling here with the threads. I run with a number of you (including the PRO dev folks here) and all I can say is that your pitch is VERY different on the forums than in game.

So my two cents worth here, I came on NOT knowing what the update was about and was quickly shown by ACIDSTORM. I was a bit disappointed with the changes and echo everyone’s concerns. Other then chugging down 20-40 pots with bosses, I am ambivalent WITH my current play experience right now.

Two outstanding issues I think need to be addressed.

#1. A number of us have spent time and money to buy the best BECAUSE of the CURRENT state. DEVS have in turn totally changed that state and dynamics which would drive us to pursue as such. Refund or award players the difference for changing such. It’s not that hard to determine who in the last X weeks/months bought/sold.

#2. REMEMBER YOUR AUDIENCE. These are mobile devices! Game weapon pieces are very slow now. People are looking to get on and enjoy a quick play and associated dynamics. Slowing this down makes PL seems like ANY app. You want PL to be the PRIMARY app. I can say for a number of toons, I run with, they are disappearing and don’t encourage people like me who enjoy sharing and the social side if they are disappearing. Let alone playing on small devices and pounding for health isn't a good enticer to stay playing.

I understand the need to change (good on the nerf) and am PRO DEV and understand business, however why not beta test it with more NON dev type and reasonably standing members before rolling it out. I have to assume this did take place, but can’t be really sure.

Again, just my opinion, however think it’s echoed throughout the forum.

[Justg]

Have you played since today's update?

[Rusalio]

really!!!! update today... No not yet.... at work..hahahahaha

[Justg]

First, understand that there is a need to do this, and it is an iterative process. Also understand that the most helpful you can be during this process is to offer specific, tangible feedback. Levels, numbers, gear, how it plays.

Finally, please know that we will continue to iterate on this until it feels great, is balanced, and gives everyone headroom for a sustainable and enjoyable play experience.

It's not done until it's done!

[smoae]

Still would like a new pink list... You can look them up in CS but the last one or two stats sknetimes get cut off, and it's easier to access on the forums.

[smoae]

Probably a mistake but the spells are actually worse for warriors. Stomp and SMS are up about 35-40 damage with about 300 strength points. But buffs and debuffs are down 50%, which is a much bigger loss than gain from stomp and sms. The main purpose of stomp is not to do damage anyway, it's to move and corner enemies. So really, the only significant spell improvement for warriors is SMS, which is not a very crucial spell in the first place.
So bears have 2 spells that are better and 8 that are worse? Plus the armor and dps reduction, this seems very unfair to bears, because mages and dex get increased armor and spell improvement for most spells.

(I'll post some specific increases and decreases for my bear when I have some time)

[duhchi]

I like the update because now you actually need a lot more teamwork. No more charging into the battle buffed up unless you have the right party. I'm wondering if this was done because there might be a new class? (humans.)

[Gryndeon]

I think that much of the unhappiness here results from a difference in perspective between the developers and the players.

For the devs, this is an ongoing project that needs to be endlessly tweaked until it's just right.

For the players, we are consumers of what we thought was a pretty polished/finished product. This is like buying something, a house or a car or a computer. Given certain specs, we choose a particular product and go home with it, thinking we know what we just bought into. What you guys are doing is like having someone come in and, not just adding some new stuff, but replacing what we already have with products that are arguably worse. Adding m/s to rift is one thing; it doesn't take away from the other players to do that and will let tanks wear the full rift set without chugging pots. But slowing down the weapons? All that does is slow down the pace of the game. And I don't see to what end.

This is not the same thing as developing the new maps/quests. Those are optional purchases. Again, we consider whether or not to make that purchase. But we would really like the stuff that we already did purchase to be pretty much left alone. Any nerfing could have been done for succeeding maps. Restructuring the entire game from the beginning levels is just not a great idea.

Anyway. I did play after the new update. Beckon still sucks. Taunt is weak. The aliens are still too easy to kill. The mages rock. The drops are pedestrian. But the bear isn't so bad to play anymore as it was last night. I felt like I actually contributed to the group instead of just letting the mages have all the fun.

So even though I'm not happy with the process, the result is okay.

The good news, of course, is that new players will be getting used to the new system, which will become their normal. Older players like myself will either adjust or go find something else to do. It's just the way it goes.

[Rashkar]

first off, the changes are doing actually beautifully, its generating better requirements for teamwork, while still making it pretty quick on runs.

Boss hp is nice and high, which makes the fights a little tedious, but i dont see this as a huge issue, people should have to work for the top end gear.

Changes that i think that still need to be made are:

- 2 hand weapons (including bows and the blasters and such) are WAY too slow still, as well as some 1 hand weapons (ie. axes)
- the set bonus changes were a good step in the right direction, issue is that still some gear is unbalanced. like its more useful to wear a lvl 50 random balistta as opposed to the mega blaster still :S, or its roughly equivalent.
- i realize this change takes time and that the issues with gear discrepancies are being worked out slowly as we come across the issues though.
- mages.... little too powerful as it is, they should have a BIT more delay between their skill uses to compensate for the massive increases in dmg/speed they can wipe stuff out with, especially now with mana shield and the massive pools of mana they are slightly overpowered in my estimation. Like just as an example if the cooldown on lightning is 5 secs now (not sure the real CD time) then make it like 7? so its between what it was and is.
- i notice that most of the good players are now using quick, 1 hand weapons as opposed to using large 2 handers because of the incredible difference in speed, and very small difference in skill damage.
- skills (at least the archer/bear ones) should be more based on weapon damage or something. What would really help woudl be a list of the actual calculations used to determine skill damages at current. Then we can evaluate and see if we can run the numbers and help out with generating a really good and balanced calculation for them.

- Also the singular heal skills on the bear and bird classes need to be buffed up.... even with only 300 health pre-changes it was a crappy skill to have, now 5 hp regen is crap, and the burst heal maxing out at like 50 is pretty sad when ur health pool is in the high 700's and enemies hit u for almost that much.

[Ellyidol]

After newest update feedback from Mage perspective:

This update did everyone more good, and mages especially. On my pure int mage pre update I couldn't reach 100% hit, it capped at 94 I think. Now with more stats, I get up to 115% even at pure int. I haven't really noticed any big change aside from the hit stat, which is actually what I just needed. As for the set bonuses, the Keeper Staff + Cosmos Armour set still outweighs the pure Mirage Staff + Cosmos Armour set. You do get more h/s and m/s with the mirage staff (with set bonus), but without the bonuses it seemed fine, I could still spam away and the only actual mana drainer was mana shield.

One suggestion as for item bonuses/sets. Make Mirage Staff do more spell damage or even base/DPS damage than Keeper in a set? Since keeper has that aoe proc that is just far too good to let go, it also has more base/DPS than a mirage even after bonuses. I have no reason really to use a mirage staff if not for the sparkle, maybe higher spikes from spells would make me consider.

As a bird:

Significant increase in base damage/DPS. Killing is WAY faster. Pre update (before stat balances), I had to use full debuff + full 3 shot skills and not even bring the yellow aliens to half. Now with them adjusted, a full combo is more than enough, maybe 2 shot skills at most. I've also noticed how thorn wall now says 12 damage per second, but if I wasn't mistaken, I think I saw 300 damage come up after using it in the mummies in Ao3 map 2, and I didn't see any "ticks" of damage while they were in it as well.

The bow/blaster issue makes sense. The blaster gives much more bonuses than the bow. Sure the bow gives 20-30 more base/DPS, but the blaster gives us 5%(?) bonus crit, more h/s and m/s and additional 5 armour. That extra 5% crit = 5% more damage overall, making the gap of the bow lower. Also, I believe the blaster has further range than the bow, which pretty much outweighs the small damage difference IMO.

As a bear, I haven't really played it much ever since anyway, pre or post update. Although from my experiences after playing with it post update, when I played as a bear my main objective was to tank, only. I was happy enough to pull enough mobs as compact as possible, scream, take as much damage as a tank should, and have the mages/birds aoe debuff/attack them away. Stomping/slashes still do well in keeping an opponent (more for stomp) stunned or away from group. One suggestion would probably be to increase aggro control of bears. Although they are much better tanks now, I've noticed the increase in capability of mages/birds to spike damage and add DPS, therefore aggro to themselves, often keeps the target switching instead of focusing on the tank, despite the Taunt skill. Also, maybe since bears do way less DPS/base damage now, to switch one of their skills to another aggro controlling skill. eg. Taunt is for AoE control, add a single target aggro skill that works specially well with bosses. From my experience as a mage/bird/bear, boss fights tend to lead to running around especially if it is a melee boss. Boss targets bear first, archers/mages spike, boss runs after highest spiker, run around and damage until dead leaving the tank close to useless.

Other than that, I still find the update good. Latest one seemed like a boost with increased stats.